


In A Yellow Wood

by dixiehellcat



Series: Two Roads Diverged [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: 14 million 6 hundred 5 my ass, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), F/M, Fix-It, Gen, The Avengers Are Good Bros, Tony Stark Lives, idk them, the Russos whomst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-01-25 18:23:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21360676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dixiehellcat/pseuds/dixiehellcat
Summary: In my story To Keep Each Other Warm, on Pepper and Tony's wedding day she alludes to how the Avengers defeated Thanos and won their happily ever after. Everybody seemed to love that casual mention, so here is the extended version, which will cover the battle of the compound and events thereafter through the wedding.
Relationships: Carol Danvers/Maria Rambeau, Nakia (Black Panther)/T'Challa, Natasha Romanov/Steve Rogers (if you turn your head just right and squint), Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Series: Two Roads Diverged [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1539787
Comments: 4
Kudos: 49
Collections: Tony Stark Flash Bingo





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story will incorporate four of the five prompts for Tony Stark Flash Bingo 2019, my card 001.
> 
> Chapter 1 prompt 'Steve Rogers'

When Mjolnir’s handle crashed into his palm, Steve’s first thought was _how?_ What made the hammer consider him worthy? He was far from perfect—never had been, as Erskine had known so long ago—and at times wasn’t even good. Moments flashed through his mind: Bucky falling; fighting his own teammates; leaving them behind. A brutal corner of his mind flung an image into his face, Tony thin and wasted from being marooned in space, yelling painful truths at him.

This was no time for doubt, though. He pushed back, summoning the memory of Tony returning to the compound, pulling the shield Howard had made out and handing it to Steve. _He forgave me_, he thought. _He let me try again_. He clutched the magical weapon, and remembered that evening, sitting down with Tony and dumping his feelings all over the place. Tony had grinned and said, “Didn’t know I looked that much like a priest, Cap.” 

Once, Steve would have taken offense, would have snapped at Tony for making light of his admissions; but that time was long past. Now, he knew what Tony’s humor meant, that it was his way of coping; and so, Steve had just grinned back and said, “I won’t tell Pepper you escaped from the seminary,” and Tony had howled with laughter.

It had been so good to have the Avengers back together, closer than ever before really. The comfort of working side by side with Tony, the excitement of the time heist, the hope when Clint and Natasha had returned with the last stone, the relief of Bruce snapping, surviving, and bringing the lost half of the universe’s population back, raced through Steve’s mind in an instant, but ran headlong into the reality of this instant. Thanos, or a version of him, more bloodthirsty than ever, had arrived with his hordes; and if only for this, the hammer of Odin had decided Captain America was worthy to wield it in battle. Nearby, Thor whooped with laughter, and Steve went back to work.

The fight raged across the remains of the Avengers compound, tipping one way and then another. Carol Danvers descended from the sky like an avenging angel (Steve almost felt like apologizing in his own head for the terrible pun, but really, it applied) and took charge of the gauntlet. It looked like they might be on the verge of victory, until Thanos took her down and seized the glove. Tony had built it to adapt to Bruce’s Hulk-size; knowing no difference, it adapted as easily to the Titan. Steve’s heart sank. He braced himself to hurl Mjolnir one last time. If Thanos intended to take them all down with the power of the Infinity Stones, they would go down fighting. Even as the thought flashed through Steve’s head, he spied Tony tackling Thanos, making one last-ditch effort, one final if useless act of resistance. The larger figure cast him aside, lifted his hand and snapped.

Nothing happened. 

An instant later, Steve saw why. The stones had vanished from Thanos’ hand—and appeared in Tony’s. His body, the Iron Man suit shredded from combat, shuddered, but his hand rose, engulfed in power no mortal could endure. _No! Tony, no!_ Steve’s whole being screamed. He let Mjolnir fly, aiming right between Thanos’ shock-widened eyes, and sprinted across the battlefield, hurdling fallen bodies and debris. “Come on!” he bellowed at Bruce as he raced past him. One huge green hand grabbed Natasha, who had just downed some slimy minion of the Black Order. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw her call for Hawkeye and reach out; Clint scrambled over tumbled bricks, caught her hand and pulled himself up. When Steve glanced around, the archer was perched on the Hulk’s shoulder firing arrows to clear their path as they followed. A look ahead showed him the hammer’s blow had dazed Thanos. It would only last a few seconds, but it was enough, Steve thought. It had to be enough. “Tony! Wait!” he yelled as he ran. 

His cry caught Thor’s notice; the Asgardian halved the foe he was fighting and lifted off from the ground with Stormbreaker in hand. A hot stinking breeze rising from the wrecked ground buffeted Steve’s neck when his teammate flew past to land by Tony’s side where he knelt on the ground, trembling from the force of the stones. “I am with you, Iron Man!” Thor boomed. One big hand fell on Tony’s right shoulder; the other planted the heft of the mighty ax in the ground. _Good idea,_ Steve’s mind processed; use the power of the enchanted weapon to ground the stones’ energy. 

He raised his hand while he ran, and Mjolnir came back to him, meeting him just as he reached Tony’s side. “I’m here, Tony!” Steve panted. 

Tony’s left arm was outstretched, but before Steve could take his hand, it spasmed and closed instead on the handle of the hammer. The massive bulk of metal and wood halted right there, held steadily aloft in Tony’s grasp. Naturally, Thor saw, and as precarious as the moment was, he threw back his head and let out a laugh like thunder. “Another worthy one!”

In the past, it might have surprised Steve. It didn't now. He laughed too, his hand folded around Tony’s, and together they lowered Mjolnir’s head to the ground. The power of the stones was an almost physical thing, thrumming through Steve’s body, the nearest he had ever experienced to the impact of the vita-rays that had made him a super soldier. 

A heavy thud sounded beside him. It was Bruce, taking a knee to lower his bulk to their level. With only one working arm, the Hulk could not reach out, but Steve slapped his free hand on the big guy’s shoulder. Natasha and Clint were sitting on him, so already in contact, and as he looked, all three of them were limned in a shimmering glow. 

Thor was holding Stormbreaker high now, lightning crackling around it. From where his and Tony’s joined hands rested, Steve could feel force rising from Mjolnir and descending from its successor, as if earth and heaven were joining them in their effort. Thanos was shaking off the blow and trying to stand, shock rapidly giving way to frank panic. Steve was petty enough to be happy about that, after all the bastard had done.

Tony was the only Avenger not looking around. Wreathed in a rainbow nimbus of power, he was transfixed on the foe who had haunted him for years. Steve felt a moment of pain and guilt, for letting him carry this all alone for so long. Super soldier serum didn’t confer mind-reading ability; he didn’t know what Tony was thinking, but in that instant, he remembered Tony asking _do you trust me_ in the ruins of an alternate New York, and he knew what Tony had meant. Steve hadn’t trusted him before with the truth, and that had to have hurt. Steve had said yes, that day, though, because he did trust Tony Stark; and now he knew with all his heart, he trusted Tony to make the right call.

When Tony snapped his fingers, the rush of power hit like a train. Steve must have blacked out briefly, but came back to himself in time to see the remnant of the Black Order start to crumble to ash. It was gratifying, and even more so the moment Thanos, sitting down on a chunk of concrete as though in surrender, dissolved into dust. Steve was more concerned with his teammates, though. He looked to his left where his hand hung loose now: Bruce had laid Clint and Natasha, neither moving, on a bare patch of ground. “Knocked ‘em out, but they're breathing, I think they're okay,” he explained, looking a bit shaky himself but otherwise not further harmed. 

Thor was swaying a bit on his feet and muttering under his breath; it sounded like he was swearing in Asgardian. Between them, Tony was motionless until Steve began to turn; then he gave a faint smile before his eyes rolled back and he went limp. Steve and Thor lunged as one to catch him before he slumped to the ground. On his right hand, the Infinity Stones still glimmered faintly, and burns scalded his neck and cheek. Steve’s mouth was open to yell for a medic—old habits died hard—when a thump on the ground brought him around. Pepper Potts, in a slim blue version of an Iron Man suit, landed beside him, her face horrified. “Is—is he—”

Tony’s eyelids fluttered open. “Hey, Pep,” he managed. “Not gettin’ rid of me that easy, sorry…” A moment later, War Machine flew over and hovered. Tony lifted his uninjured hand in a feeble wave. “Quit loiterin’, Rhodey,” he breathed, “’m fine.” 

“Get us some help?” Steve asked. Rhodes gave a curt nod and flew off. “You did it, Tony,” he said more softly to the friend leaning against him.

“We did it,” Tony corrected him. “Like you always said, old man.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Several months after the battle of the compound, Tony and Rhodey go for a drive.
> 
> Fills the Tony Stark Flash Bingo prompt, 'Log Cabin'

James Rhodes had never been more thankful in his life to babysit. Not that he would ever use that word for this situation; his best friend might be down one limb, but Tony would figure out with a quickness some way to beat the crap out of Rhodey if he said a word that made Tony think he was a burden.

From behind the steering wheel, he glanced across the car. Tony seemed comfortable, settled in the passenger seat, once he had finally gotten over chafing about that. He hated being driven anywhere, and Rhodey was one of the few people he trusted behind the wheel. Learning to function with one arm was a work in progress, Rhodey was sure, and their lifelong friendship wasn’t the only reason Tony told him things he wouldn’t tell anybody else. _Been there, done that_, Rhodey thought and shifted his legs in their state-of-the-art StarkTech braces.

Of all people, the other person Tony seemed to feel able to vent to the most was Bucky Barnes, but that made sense to Rhodey. Once they had finally gotten the air clear about their tangled pasts and been able to sit down and talk, Tony had confided to Rhodey, it was surprising just how alike the two were. Besides that, once Wakandan physicians had realized they could not save Tony’s arm, Barnes had instantly offered his help, and taught Tony all kinds of tricks and hacks without hesitation.

As good as the Wakandans had been to Tony, though—to all the injured Avengers and fellow combatants who had helped take Thanos and his mob down--Rhodey knew Tony was relieved when he was finally strong enough to come back to the States. In the brownstone he and Pepper rented in New York, Tony was, in typical fashion, creating every bit of tech he had imagined while lying in a hospital bed, to regain his independence. “How’s that bathing bot coming along?” Rhodey asked now.

Tony snorted. “Still working out bugs in the code. Think I’m gonna have to delegate bathtime assistance to DUM-E. He’s entirely too eager though, I’m worried.”

“Glad you felt like getting out of those four walls finally.” Rhodey gazed out the windows and around at the pleasant rural landscape of upstate New York. “Reminds me of those times back in college when we both needed to get away.”

“Yeah,” Tony agreed before his mouth quirked in an ironic half-smile. “Except I was usually hung over those days, and we weren’t coming back from inspecting a battlefield.”

“Depends on your definition of a battlefield,” Rhodey countered. “Remember that big-ass fight you started when those clowns in CompSci hassled the only girl in the new class, what was her name, Jeanette?”

“Hey, it was purely coincidence that the women’s lacrosse team just happened to be passing by when I called those bastards out, or that every gal on that team was bigger and meaner than I was!”

Rhodey laughed out loud, then suddenly had to rein it in, before the laughter turned into tears. Abruptly he turned off the main highway from the compound, up a narrow winding country road. “Let’s take the scenic route. I think we both can use a little more chill time, and this way maybe you won’t drive Pep nuts when you get home.”

Tony lowered his sunglasses and narrowed his eyes. “You’re not exactly a nature boy, platypus. What’s eating you?”

“Why’s something have to be eating me? Can’t I just spend some time with my bro?” Tony’s scrutiny did not waver. “Tones, we…I came so damn close to losing you for good, this time.”

“Not the first time.”

“No, you got me there. Self-sacrificing asshole. Maybe the last time, though, in a good way. So I want to appreciate having you here. So? sue me.”

“You don’t have enough in the bank to make me suing you worth the effort.” Tony’s snarky reply was tempered by the return of that small smile. “You know I appreciate you too, right honeybear? ‘cause I wouldn’t have wanted to die without you knowing that.”

“Then don’t die anytime soon, ‘cause I’m still not altogether sure I believe it.” Tony's sharp laugh was one of the best sounds Rhodey had heard in longer than he cared to contemplate.

They stopped at a little old-fashioned grocery store, and Rhodey was quietly pleased when Tony insisted on getting out and going inside instead of sitting in the car. He had feared the injuries would make Tony a recluse, knowing he could no longer measure up to the glamorous playboy image of his past life. While Rhodey rummaged in the store’s cooler, though, Tony seemed as at ease chatting with the elderly woman behind the counter as he ever had been verbally fencing with nosy reporters or cranky military brass. “Hey Tones, look, they have Polar seltzers.”

“Whoa, how many of those have you poured down my throat to keep me hydrated after an underaged binge?” Tony fumbled for his wallet, grumbling and reaching across his body into his opposite pants pocket, until the lady patted his hand and shooed them both out without taking their money. Rhodey used the bottle opener mounted on the door frame to pop them both and handed Tony one. “Remind me to make the prosthesis detachable,” Tony said out one side of his mouth as they ambled around the side of the little frame structure. “Sympathy vote could be helpful in some circumstances.”

“Son of a bitch,” Rhodey said warmly. Where once he would have shoved Tony hard enough to make him stumble and started a playful pushing match, he just nudged him now, to avoid pitching him off balance. 

Behind the market, a rough little path led down to the bank of a small lake, really just a glorified pond. Tony set off that way, ignoring Rhodey’s half-hearted protests. “Therapist keeps telling me to get out and work on walking on uneven surfaces, sour patch! Quit holding back my recovery.”

They walked down to the water’s edge, found a couple of flat rocks, sat quietly and drank. The fruity fizz of the seltzer took Rhodey back to late nights and too-early mornings at MIT; to a Philly boy who hoped using his brains and serving his country would get him ahead, and a baby genius whose spoiled-brat front shielded a lonely heart. How far they both had come. “This is nice,” Tony said after a few minutes. “City boy, yeah, accustomed to inhaling pollution, so the fresh air is good stuff. It’s like Malibu, only not, if that makes any sense.”

“Makes as much sense as anything else you’ve ever said,” Rhodey chuckled.

Tony drained his bottle, then rose stiffly to his feet. “Help me keep track of steps here. Might as well make the therapy staff proud of me.” 

They ambled along the graveled shore a little way, and Rhodey was about to suggest they turn back before Tony overextended himself, when Tony paused and cocked his head in a movement Rhodey translated all too easily. _Ohh shit, what’s got his attention now?_ “Tones, slow down, you know I’m a little bit gimpy too!”

“Pipe down, wimp,” Tony tossed back over his shoulder as he puffed down the shore and up a shallow embankment, to stop beside a FOR SALE sign. It sat at the end of a neatly trimmed walkway up to a gorgeous rustic home, wood and stone with a big porch that wrapped around three sides. “Hah. A log cabin!”

“That is not a log cabin,” Rhodey argued. “Looks pretty luxe to me. I mean, compared to the slick ultra-modern designs you’re used to, I guess it’d look like—”

“Log cabin,” Tony insisted. “I know one when I see one. Abe Lincoln grew up in this place. Yep.” Resting the empty drink bottle still in his one hand against the frame of the sign to support himself, he turned slowly and looked around the property. The view over the lake was especially spectacular from here, Rhodey noted as he shaded his eyes against the afternoon sun glinting off the water. A small outbuilding sat nearby, surrounded by bushes heavy with pinkish-red berries. 

Tony bent with a stifled grunt and set his empty down beside the sign. “That’s rude,” Rhodey admonished him.

“Rhodey! I’m wounded by your lack of confidence in me. I’ll grab it as we leave.”

“Leave where? Tony?” Rhodey scrambled again as Tony marched forward, the old sureness and poise more evident with every step. Up the pathway he strode with Rhodey in hot pursuit, to the house’s front door, and knocked.

“Hi,” Tony said with a smile when a puzzled-faced man answered. “I saw your sign. I think I’d like to buy your log cabin here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this verse, the yelling and hollering and finally making peace between the Avengers happened a lot sooner than in canon, partly because Pepper and Rhodey play a bigger part than we saw in Endgame (you may remember in To Keep Each Other Warm, Pepper and Natasha talk some things out, and Tony never has to go off on Steve because Rhodey beats him to it. lol) Scott reappeared much sooner too. I figure only a few months at the most lapsed between Tony's return from Titan and his rejoining the team at the compound to put together the time heist. So Tony and Pepper didn't buy the lake house until after the snap was undone, and this chapter tells that story. :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha volunteered to organize Tony and Pepper's wedding, but obtaining the cake she wants for them is more of a challenge than she expected.
> 
> Fill for Tony Stark Flash Bingo card 001, prompt 'baked goods'

Natasha Romanoff, Black Widow, Avenger, deadliest assassin of SHIELD, had committed a grave blunder. 

She had ordered a wedding cake from a skinny youngster in a paper hat at a pop-up bakery in Manhattan, and the bakery had popped right back out of existence. She stood, hands on her hips, in front of the vacant storefront, and pondered how long it would take for her to track the putative owner down and torture a cake out of them. Volunteering to plan Tony and Pepper’s wedding might not have been the best impulse she had ever acted on.

Her phone rang, and she fished it out of her jacket pocket. “Hey,” Steve greeted her. “How’s the wedding planning going?”

“It’s not. The bakery’s…gone.”

“Gone? As in vanished? With the cake? But the wedding’s tomorrow!" He sounded panicky for a couple of seconds. "Okay, surely you can find something that’ll work. Tony’s not picky as long as it’s got sugar, and Pepper’ll understand as long as it doesn't have something obscene written on it in frosting.”

“That’s not the point.” Natasha stepped off the sidewalk into the entranceway and slumped against the locked door. 

“Cake’s cake, right? The bakery’s gone? Why did you order from them anyway? This is New York, there have to be a couple hundred bakeries.”

“It’s…They were the only ones that made _medovik_, by the old recipe, and theirs had excellent reviews online. It's a traditional Russian honey cake. I wanted to serve that, for Tony and Pepper. It’s one of the few sweets I remember from childhood, and I—” Natasha caught her breath. It was so stupid, how months after ending Thanos and bringing everyone back, she still found herself prone to unanticipated outbreaks of emotion. She was still the Black Widow, she told herself sternly, not some weepy child. “I just wanted them to have it,” she finished lamely. “It's for special occasions, and this is about as special as they come. I can get something else, though. It wouldn’t have been appropriate anyway, I suppose; it was an old Soviet thing. You’re right, it’s foolish for me to get upset over—”

“We can find it,” Steve interrupted. She blinked slowly as he rattled on. “There’s a Russian bakery in Brooklyn, I remember it from when I was a kid; maybe more than one. Or, plenty of little Russian grandmas live in my old neighborhood. We could probably coax one into doing it. Or we could buy the ingredients and go bake it ourselves at the compound.”

The mental image of Captain America trying to spread sticky sour-cream frosting and coax paper-thin layers of sponge cake into submission made her laugh past the tight little lump in her throat. “No, no, that’s definitely not an option. Honey cake takes some skill.”

“Fine, tell me where you are. I’ll pick you up and we’ll go do recon.”

A few minutes later Steve roared up on his motorcycle. Natasha climbed on the back and held on tight. He sat for a moment, with a glare fixed on the empty shop. “We’ll find ‘em, later,” he promised. “They won’t want to be known as the ones who made the Black Widow cry and nearly ruined Iron Man’s wedding.”

“We will do no such thing. And I did not cry.”

Steve just grinned, before they raced across the Brooklyn Bridge into the borough of Steve’s birth. As they alighted in front of a small but busy establishment, Natasha smiled to hear Russian spoken. “It probably would have been better if I’d come here in the first place,” she admitted, ”but I was trying to be…discreet. I didn’t let the bakery, if you can even call it that, know who I was.”

“Doesn’t matter. Nobody oughta take a powder on their business like that. Everything else in line?” She nodded, and Steve patted her shoulder with a soft smile. “Quit worryin’, then. It’s gonna be fine. You know Pepper’s just over the moon to have a function goin’ on that she didn’t have to plan herself.”

“Pepper's over the moon to finally be marrying Tony.” She matched his smile. “Impersonating a wedding planner is much easier than actually being one, though. I think I'd better keep my day job.”

“You just wanted to make ‘em happy, Nat. They know that. C’mon, let’s see what we can rustle up.”

Steve could not have hidden his identity in Brooklyn if he had tried, which he wasn’t, and before long it seemed half the neighborhood was peeking in the bakery’s front windows. Natasha swallowed her pride and shared her tale of woe with the plump woman behind the counter, who gasped and summoned her _babushka_. The grandmother all but wept herself, clasped Natasha’s hands in hers, stood on tiptoe to pat Steve’s blushing cheek, and assured them the greatest _medovik_ ever baked would be ready for them to pick up the next day, in plenty of time to get it to Tony and Pepper’s lake house. (Natasha might have already enlisted Happy Hogan’s help in transporting the cake, and made a mental note to inform him of the change in pickup location.)

“They, um, are clear whose wedding it’s for, right?” Steve’s voice was slightly uneasy. “I mean, the way she was looking at you an’ me…”

Natasha smothered a chuckle. “They’re clear, Steve. Calm down.”

A horde of children welcomed them as they left, and Steve took a few minutes to pat heads and take selfies. Many of them seemed just as excited to see Natasha; the public face of being a hero was one she would never quite get accustomed to, but the bright eyes, particularly of the little girls gazing up at her in frank awe, was undeniably warming. 

“Thanks for your help,” she said after the small troop dispersed, leaving them to stroll along the street in relative peace. 

“You had the idea in mind, you knew what you wanted to do for Tony and Pepper. I just facilitated.” Steve shrugged. “I think it’s great that you took the job so seriously.”

“They deserve it, after all they’ve been through. They’re so happy. I want them to have the best day imaginable.”

They walked around the block in silence. “You ever think about that? A wedding, a family?”

She never had, really. Bruce was the only one who knew she could not have a family in the conventional sense. Once, she had entertained the thought of a future with him, but his flight and long absence, capped with the experiments that had merged him and the Hulk, had ended that. They had made peace, but any feelings she had had for him had morphed into something else, more of a friendship than romance. The family she had found in the Avengers, finally, would have to be enough. “No,” she said. “You? Other than Peggy Carter, that is.”

He shook his head. “I checked in on her,” he said. “When I went to take the Space Stone back to 1970. She had pictures of her husband and kids. She was happy, and I’m glad. Me, I always felt like this was not my place, that I was out of my time, a fish out of water, you know? But traveling to return the Stones showed me, going back wasn’t an option. That old time isn’t my time anymore either. Maybe now, with Thanos defeated, and the team back on the same page, there’s a chance, a place for me here.”

Back at the bike, Natasha leaned forward and up, and kissed his cheek. “Yes. You have a place, here and now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About that cake: https://www.olgasflavorfactory.com/recipes/favorites/medovik-honey-layer-cake/


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The big day, as told by Tony. 
> 
> Fill for Tony Stark Flash Bingo card 001, prompt 'wedding'

Peter banged on the cabin's bathroom door. “Mr. Stark!” he yelled. “Mr. Stark, are you okay in there? Did you climb out the window? Doctor Strange says he’s going to send his cloak after you if you’re trying to, what was it he said, abscond?”

“I’m in here, kid, cool your jets.” Tony had to admit climbing out the window had crossed his mind, but even a last-minute pre-nuptial panic attack couldn’t drive him to risk ripping a Brion tuxedo. Well, it hadn’t yet, at any rate.

Shuffling noises, then Rhodey's voice, filtered through the locked door. “He’s okay, Pete, he’s just having a moment. I’m used to them…TONES! Get your ass out here before I have to call mama on you!”

Now that was a threat. Tony would rather face Thanos again than an angry Roberta Rhodes. He stood from his perch on the toilet lid, gripped the vanity and stared at himself in the mirror, hating what he saw. He should have taken Barton up on that offer to steal a photostatic veil from SHIELD’s stash. Better yet, he should have asked Pepper to wait, and gotten plastic surgery. People blinked, looked away, or marveled at the scars that taking point in the Avengers’ wielding of the Infinity Stones had carved across the right side of his face. He could almost hear what went through their minds: _Tony Stark used to be so cocky and egotistical, and look at him now. Guess he’s finally gotten over his narcissism._ They had no way of knowing he had left the scars as a sort of penance. It would have been fine if his self-loathing had only affected him, but how in the name of all humans had ever worshipped could Pepper stand to even look at him, let alone want to marry him? 

Not for the first time, he thought he should have agreed when he was still half-dazed from the battle, waking up in a hospital bed in Wakanda, when Pepper had all but demanded he marry her right there and then. _If I wanted to suck her in, I should have said yeah then, when she was weak._

He laughed quietly, scornfully, at his own foolish thoughts. Pepper Potts was not weak, never had been weak. She deserved better than him. He looked down at his right arm, turning it slowly, flexing the fingers and watching the bathroom’s unforgiving lights catch in the shiny red and gold of the nanotech. Another thing people thought showed newfound modesty, another thing that secretly was all arrogance; he wanted them to see it, to see what he had wrought and how he had fought his way back into life. If he really was humble, he would have covered it with nanoskin. This was Pepper’s day, and he shouldn’t be trying, however unconsciously, to take the spotlight from her.

Too late to fix all of that now, though. He took a breath and straightened up. It wasn’t a huge crowd, anyway: only the Avengers and the associates who had helped them save the universe and become their friends and comrades in arms. They all knew he was an asshole already, so the worst that could happen was that somebody would talk some sense into Pepper and she would call the whole thing off. He refused to acknowledge the way his heart almost stopped at that thought.

With one more moment to adjust his jacket, he unlocked the door and opened it. “Finished puking?” Rhodey asked with a grin. 

“Puking,” Tony scoffed. “Platypus, you know better than that. I was just checking my look in the mirror. Want Pep to know what’s she getting herself into.”

He spoke as lightly as ever, but Rhodey’s quiet “Mmm hmm” said volumes, and his sharp eyes missed nothing. “Ready to roll? Need a hand?”

Tony held up both arms, flesh and prosthetic. “Got one of each, thanks anyway.” He looked his groomsmen over. Peter seemed almost grown, straight and tall like a young tree. Happy was surprisingly sharp; Tony had looked askance at the paisley accessories his friend had chosen, but they worked on his big frame. “Hap, you look good enough to be getting married too. Go grab May, and we’ll see if Wong’ll gove us a two for one deal.”

Happy flushed and Peter yelped, “Uh, no, no, let’s not, Mr. Stark, let’s just—uh-uh.”

“Mr. Stark?” Tony punched Spider-man lightly on the shoulder. “I thought we got past that, underoos. My name is Tony, remember?”

“Yeah. Yeah, Tony. Okay. Well—c’mon, Mr. Stark, Miss Potts is probably waiting for you.”

“She’s probably catching a nap, you took longer to get ready than she did,” Rhodey jibed as they went out the side door of the house and walked around to the lakeshore. His hand went out almost automatically when Tony nearly stumbled, his right foot still occasionally dragging from the nerve damage that might never fully heal and had ended his career as Iron Man. Tony waved it off. He was fine, and he had sworn to Pepper he would not marry her until he could stand on his own two feet. All the same, he had no desire to faceplant at the altar, figuratively or literally, so he suffered Rhodey to take hold of his elbow when they reached the water’s edge.

The last person Tony would have thought to ask to officiate at his wedding was Strange’s pal Wong, but the sorcerer had discreetly approached him once the aftermath of Thanos’ attacks were cleaned up and offered his services. “You did invite me, after all,” he pointed out. “And I took an online course several years ago, I’m fully ordained, and legally sanctioned to perform weddings in…forty-seven states, I think.” Strange hadn’t known it either, and his reaction was priceless. The master of mystic arts (which still sounded suspiciously like some online degree itself, to Tony) was resplendent in fancy dress robes, and his usually dour expression was so curiously cheerful that Tony wondered for a moment if he had been replaced by one of those Skrulls Carol Danvers had told them about.

He hadn’t been nervous in front of a crowd since he was five, but he was almost afraid to turn and look back at the gathering. When he did, though, Natasha caught his eye from the back of the group where she stood with May and Nebula, by the steps down from the front door of the lake house, and smiled. Cap had confided that she had run him all over the five boroughs in search of the cake she wanted for the wedding reception, some special Russian recipe that she insisted Tony and Pepper had to have. He never would have imagined such sentimentality from the Black Widow, but it meant more to him than he could ever have said so he wasn’t even going to try. He just returned her smile, before the sound of a door drew every eye back to the house.

A soft _ah_ lifted into the mild air, the entire assemblage responding as one to the arrival of the bride. Pepper wore a simple sleeveless white dress, but when she half-turned to smile at someone, Tony saw the back of it, dipped low with soft folds of fabric. It looked like The Dress, the blue one, the one he had been thinking of when he colored Rescue, the one she was wearing the moment love hit him like a Mack truck. He thought he might just have an actual panic attack right there, but the tightness in his chest and shortness of breath was not like any attack of anxiety he had ever felt. It…wasn’t bad. It was_ terrifying_, but in an awe-inspiring way.

Then the blue eyes flicked up and landed on him, and he almost went limp. _She loves me,_ he thought in awe. _Fuck if I know how, but she does. _

It was so easy after that, saying the words and putting the gold-titanium ring on her finger. After she did the same to him, she took both his hands in her smaller ones and looked down at the left one, then the right one. Tony couldn’t keep himself from tensing up when her gaze fell on the metal she clasped, or when she let go of that hand. He was suddenly, absurdly afraid her face would hold nothing but horror when she looked up at him again, and she would walk, or more likely run, away. “Last chance to come to your senses, Potts,” he managed to whisper.

Instead, she smiled, and lifted her hand to his scarred cheek. “I have,” she replied. 

His vision blurred and he panicked for half a second, until he realized the problem was the water spilling shamelessly from his eyes. She caught her breath lightly, and then her soft lips were on his ragged face, kissing the tears away and then steadying his trembling mouth with hers. “Sorry,” he breathed when she moved back.

“I’m not,” she grinned and pulled him into her embrace while the observers started to cheer and Rhodey handed him a handkerchief. He could always depend on his sour patch to plan ahead.

The reception was suitably chaotic and strangely wonderful. Tony reminded himself to write Romanoff a letter of recommendation for whatever wedding planner gig she wanted. She’d probably beat him up, but it was going to be so worth it just for the look on her face. Danvers did her levitating-sparklefist thing and exploded fireballs over the lake, better than any overpriced fireworks he could have bought. Shuri trying to teach Parker a Wakandan dance was entertainment that would be rivaled only by the kid’s reaction when he found out May was video’ing the whole thing. Scott Lang was demonstrating his dorky magic tricks to the Barton brood, Nebula’s awestruck friends, and Thor, watching with an oddly wistful expression.

In his heyday Tony would have partied them all into the ground, but years and parties had passed him by, and by dark he was ready to pack it in. He looked around for Pepper and spotted her perched on a bench besides the cleared area marked off for dancing, chatting with Danvers’ girlfriend Maria and another young woman. As he watched, Maria stood and went to join Carol, as she landed and Strange took over the light show, and the other woman went over to T’Challa. He wasn’t close enough to hear, as he made his way in that direction, but from her movements she was clearly asking the king to dance. Tony snickered under his breath when the younger man gulped and nearly tripped over his feet.

Alone now, Pepper glanced around and rubbed her bare arms. Tony slipped his tux jacket off, stepped up behind her and laid it over her shoulders. She reflexively reached up to grasp the lapel, and he put his right hand over hers. Without even looking, she took it and stood before she turned to face him with that same smile that had nearly sent him to his knees. “One more dance, Mrs. Stark?” he asked.

“Absolutely.”

They danced, and then sat back down on the bench. Tony rested his head on Pepper’s shoulder and she rubbed his back. Rhodey stopped by to scold him for overextending himself, but gently. Rogers (aided by Wilson, and Barnes of all people) rounded up the guests and herded them over to say goodnight and depart. As the last headlights vanished into the night and the _Benatar_ shot off into the skies, they ambled up the path to the cabin Tony’s friends and bots had helped him renovate. He was leaning on her more than he wanted to, but her delighted air never wavered. “Don’t look so happy, Potts," he warned her. "I’m still a hot mess.”

They paused on the porch and she turned to face him as she had when she vowed to be his. “Yes, yes you are; but you are _my_ hot mess, now and forever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MY FIRST BINGO AND I MADE A BLACKOUT, HUZZAH. lol
> 
> Hope y'all enjoyed this--it was so much fun inserting these little snapshots into the mini-verse I made.
> 
> You know what The Dress looks like. Pepper just had it duplicated in white for the wedding.


End file.
